


White Collar Lies

by lightemup



Category: Cow Chop, The Creatures (Youtube RPF)
Genre: I don't like tagging, M/M, This is kinda dark, so be warned reading i guess??, why isn't there a cow chop fandom tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 02:42:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7783633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightemup/pseuds/lightemup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Get your gear my son you're leaving in the morning<br/>Unit bravo one, the president is calling for your<br/>life, your gun and your liberty, it's about times you earned your freedom'</p><p>James dreamed off a perfect life with a perfect family, but of course the world is too cruel to allow that. Bombs hit and the world goes to shit, every man for himself.</p><p>Everyone seems to have become numb to reality of life, until James meets a bright eyed man who teaches him to world isn't so dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Beginning of the End

**Author's Note:**

> Okay i have high hopes for this one. 
> 
> Loving the fact that dystopian and apocalyptic fics are becoming popular for these two, so thought i would add.
> 
> I ain't the most confident of writers and if you have any criticism or tips please please do tell me! 
> 
> Anyway this entire story is based on an album by the band Kopek and their album white collar lies. 
> 
> I highly highly recommend listening to the album which can be found here (how does one tag a link to a word woops) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BHrzqm5ovM as it will give you a feel to the story.  
> This story isn't going to be a very happy one at first and i apologise for the short first chapter, they will be longer next time i just wanted to establish the start.
> 
> ANYWAY ENJOY I HOPE IT'S OKAY <3

James dreamed of handfuls of careers as he grew up, daydreaming of his older days in IT departments, Medical wards, Courtrooms and hot busy kitchens.   
He dreamed of actually enjoying his career, waking up at the crack of dawn and not dreading setting foot out his house. He dreamed being able to work a 9-5 job and come home to a dog, maybe even a family in a suburban home with a white picket fence. The sound of kids laughing as he walked up a path to happy household and a smiling wife. James had all these fantasies of a perfect house in a perfect world.   
  


Yet they’re called fantasies for a reason. No bitter world would allow anyone the joy of enjoying adulthood. And that’s exactly what the world is, bitter. Bitter, Angry, Harsh and whatever else you want to call it.   
He began to realise just how cruel the world was at 17 when he started to pay attention to news. 

 

_ TERRORIST ATTACK IN LONDON - 52 DEAD _

_ VIRGINIA TECH SHOOTINGS - 32 DEAD _

_ ADAM AIR FLIGHT KI-574 CRASH - 102 DEAD _

 

Sat crossed leg in front of the TV, eyes wide with a cheap microwave meal in his hand he watched the countless tragedies grow and grow as the years went on. Assassinations, terrorist attacks, murder and economic collapses being reported by a pristine news reader. A dead set look in her eyes as she stares directly into the camera and report such awful events.   
That’s one career James couldn’t do, it’s bad enough hearing it, he couldn’t imagine having to report it to unsuspecting people.

“What a surprise” his mom would mutter from behind him, her head glued to her phone as she reads another school shooting story.   
It was at 19 James realised how numb everyone had gotten to the horrors on the news. A terrorist attack? The world’s face falls as they all mutter “Not another one”, “what do you expect”, “the government needs to do something!”

 

The Government. Set in place to govern a set place with laws and rules to protect the citizens.

_ Black Lives Matter _ . 

To make the big decisions and choose what's right for the country. 

_ Fuck The Tories! _

A fair leadership, equality and refuge.

_ Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall to stop illegal immigrants entering the country. _

At 19 James realised you can’t get away from the news. Whether it’s the talk of the town, newspapers, a moment of silence for a terrorist attack.

At 19 James realised his fantasies will only stay as fantasties. 

 

He’s now 23 sat on an old stained couch, eating from a take out box watching the grainy picture of his TV. His apartment is cheap with suspicious smells and leaking ceilings. It’s all he can afford on a minimum wage, not a sign of a white picket fence.   
The canned laughter shrieks through the speakers at a mediocre joke and James’ face doesn’t move from it’s flat lifeless expression.   
He has work in two hours, a night shift at a 24 hour garage and dreads the shift.    
“Think of the money” he tells himself. 

“Is it even worth the money?” A part of him says.

He wipes the sauce from around his mouth with his sleeve and delves back into the salty goop that claims to be Chow Mein.    
But before he can hear the punchline of the joke, the building shakes and his window shatters.   
Outside he hears a enormous bang and he shields his face as a spray off glass flies over his TV and towards him. Car alarms instantly start blaring but James can’t hear over the ringing in his ears. He cracks his eyes open, wincing at the glass lodged in his knee and arms. The ringing is so loud, making him disorientated. His visions in foggy, so he squeezes his eyes open and shut trying to clear his vision. He brings his hand to his face and digs sharp knuckles into his eyes roughly. Desperately trying to make sense of his surroundings.    
Outside is glowing orange, the heat slapping him as he raises himself from the couch. He squints as he steps around the broken glass and towards the empty window frame, take away container falling to the floor. 

Outside looks like it belongs in a war zone, James simply stares with a numb chest and shaking hands. Three buildings across from him are left an empty shell, cascade of concrete littering down onto the pavement. The air is full of dust and smoke and he coughs weakly as the smoke hits his lungs. Cars are left dented on the road, including his own with the sign of a takeout store across from him. The normally lit up letters sparking and bellowing out puffs of smoke. His stomach drops as he begins to see the bodies, littering the floor like dead flies on a windowsill. 

What once was a busy street, filled with hopeful people with dreams now presents itself as a graveyard. He averts his eyes the dead child still holding hands with the now headless body next to his car. 

Then the helicopters come in and people start shouting, waving their hands as wide as they can. But the helicopters fly past them, towards the city hall standing in the distance.

“Typical” James thinks weakly dropping his head. 

Of course they would go straight for governing officials, he manages to let out a croaked laugh. He backs away from the window and flinches from setting his leg down, taut skin pulling on the tiny shards of glass littering his knee like a beaded dress. He hisses and brings his knee up to inspect, anxiously trying to pick the glass away. 

 

James thought the world up to now had been bitter, cruel and awful. This was only the beginning of the worst.


	2. Everyday is exactly the same

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In and out, easy trip. Grab the shit and leave, simple

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow crazy I actually updated.
> 
> This chapter is longer and I hope its okay!! Yet again any constructive critisism is welcome as I'm still shoddy on my writing.
> 
> But anyway hope you enjoy!!!

 

 

**3 years later - Location …. Littleton, Co**

 

His routine was simple. Fall asleep in the light of the moon in the window; to be awoken by the sun rising.

On the wall next to the window, he scratches in tallies of each day using an old blunt compas.

Depending on what food he had, today being a fresh serving of jack shit, he would eat his way through the food assessing the day ahead.

He would then head to the office bathroom in the building he was held up in and take a piss down the drain.

Then fear glancing in the mirror at himself.

 

He looks particularly bad today. After two days of no food or water his face was gaunt underneath unkempt facial hair. His actually hair he shoves into a beanie, the length getting unmanageable as it tickles his shoulders. He would cut it but he hasn't come across anything to use since the last hair cut.

 

In a notebook he keeps in his bag, he uses a blunt pencil to roughly write up supplies.

And in fear of forgetting he writes a happy memory down a day.

James likes to think it'll improve his well being by being positive but it only makes him long for the unreachable.

 

_ Watching Hannibal for the first time. _

 

It makes him smile briefly but then hold a sullen face to what he cannot watch anymore.

 

Part of him wishes for a change, a repetitive routine he's quickly grown tired of. Every day being exactly the same. But it's a routine he can do. A routine he knows works. He knows what he's doing here and has done for this last year and it works for him.

But at night when he's warm; so warm he wishes there was a body next to him to make him feel like he's actually here. 

Disassociating is something he's become too familiar with. Feeling two steps behind himself regularly. As much as the world has already pretty much ended he feels like it's going to end daily all over again.

Spacing out over nothing, feeling unconnected from his body.

He often spends hours with his head elsewhere, pretending that he has a alternative life.

 

It's just like before; fantasties. They stayed fantasies back then so they'll for sure never come to life now. 

But he's become so numb he wishes for a change.

 

Nothing has changed in the last year and he knows himself he works better alone.

He longs for something but he doesn't know what.

But for now, it's his stomach that longs for food. A gargling ripple that has become painful since he awoke.

He has nothing and the white dots are beginning to appear.

 

The entrance into the office takes some time to shift but he makes a gap big enough for his thin frame to squeeze through. Behind him he covers the gap with a makeshift shield made from a locker door.

He attaches a wire from the shield to a weight above him.

If anyone were the enter  _ hopefully _ the weight above would be enough to knock them out.

It certainly didn't three days ago.

All the same he leaves the office trying to settle the dizziness on the horizon and heads towards the main high street, a short walk away.

 

A short walk that felt a lifetime as his head starts spinning. He briefly wonders if he can even make it to town as he stumbles over his own feet.

 

> _ In and out, easy trip. Grab the shit and leave, simple ****. _

 

He hasn’t been this hungry in awhile, not to point of trembling hands and white spots. His limited food supply had been reduced to nothing after an attack during the night three days ago. His water gone, cans and the small handgun he had acquired almost two months ago.   
It was when he started dry heaving and found himself passed out in an old town square he realised how hungry he really was.

The tree his back in jammed against digs painfully into his back as James takes shallow breaths to stop himself passing out, his vision is barely there but he can make out an old grocery store across the way.

The shutters still remain close and no visible sign of forced entry are what drew James here. There is a chance that something has to be here.

_ Kinda fucked if there isn’t. _

His stomach feels so hollow he wonders if his stomach has dried up into nothing, sharp hip bones barely keeping his loose cargo pants up. 

He rubs at his eyes one last time trying to dig his fingers in hard before forcing himself away from the tree. He scans the area the best he can, a road of abandoned cars and shop fronts. He reads over the different store names, thinking back to when a ballet store was actually useful to people. His eyes meet the sign for Merle’s, a downtown restaurant he used to visit with friends before all this.   
James pushes away the gut wrenching feeling as memories of various faces pass through his mind. 

_ People would only slow you down. _

He begins crossing the main high street, dodging lumps of concrete that came from an insurance building down the road in the initial bombings. The sign for ‘Huskins and Eatons Insurance’ lays broken in half in the middle of it all. 

Briefly considering salvaging the sign he moves forward to the shutters and eyes them up and down. He’s limited to strength and for them to be open straight away would be too easy.

It doesn’t stop him from attempting to open the sun bleached shutters, clamping his teeth on his lip as they rattle in protest.

Of course they’re locked otherwise the store would have been looted by now. He tries once more and curses loudly, feeling his strength leave him as he crumbles to the floor.

_ Maybe this is how i die, in front of a convenience store _

He slumped his head back letting his eyes drift close.

His head was so clouded and even with his eyes closed James felt the dizziness low in his stomach. A deep lurching feeling; making his gut turn. 

Sunshine was beaming down onto his face, his sweat gathering on his skin. He wasn't sure if it was a cold sweat or his body's rejection to the heat. The sweat beaded down his face, dripping from his chin.

James could feel his shallow breaths breaking from his lungs.

_ This is it _ .

What he would do to be sitting by the counter of the 24 hour garage.

He craved the feel of the AC above the till; the smell of petrol drifting through the doors from outside.

He could picture the jar of Jerky sat by the register for last minute purchases, or what James called the help yourself jar.

Something to chew on when he was peckish.

He longed for the tin like surround sound, playing the local radio station. Before he would turn his nose up at the music, he now wanted it so badly his chest ached.

Or maybe that was just him dying.

 

It was when the hot sun on his face suddenly went cold he managed to crack his eyes open.

Any other situation he would jump to defense at the individual in front of him.

Yet now his energy was so low and even if he wasn't dying; there wasn't a single salvageable item on him.

“Listen man just leave me al-”

“Need any help?” 

James paused; not expecting that response. He took a deep breath in and pulled his head forward for a better look at the stranger.

 

His blonde hair was pulled into a rough ponytail sitting atop his head. Cracked glasses probably didn't serve any use with one lense missing but he wore them all the same. His face had kind features; something James wasn't used to.

 

There was a reason James has been alone since the start. People didn't tend to be kind.

He had a stained blue Mario shirt under a light grey jacket and James briefly smiled at the memory of playing Mario.

“Judging by that smile I would say I’m safe to give you some water?” The stranger said pulling James from his thoughts.

 

The blonde sat himself down next to James and pulled the dusty bag from his shoulder.

“I don't have much” he began digging in his bag, “but I do have some to spare for your sorry looking ass”

James managed to crack a small smile and took the bottle from the strangers out stretcher arm.

He downed nearly half the bottle in one to hungrily. Relishing the feel of his throat being hydrated.

He squeezed the bottle in his hand as he drank and pulled a half crumpled bottle away.

“Yikes” the stranger said from before him.

 

James took a moment to get his breathing even and turned the man next to him.

“So what would the name be of someone who rescued my ‘sorry looking ass’ then?” 

“Seamus” he answered simply. He brought his fist to the shutter behind and gave it a bang. “Trying to get in?”

James nearly let out a sarcastic laugh but instead nodded.

“Looks untouched surprisingly” . 

Seamus nodded his head, his face looking deep in thought.

“Locked?” 

James raised his eyebrows quickly.

“If it wasn't locked I would be inside by now”

Seamus pursed his lips and pulled his bag open.

“Know how to pick a lock?” The blonde asked pulling out a pack of hair grips.

He threw the pack towards James after his nod in response.

“Good because they've been in my bag for like a year and I suck at picking locks” he drawled.

 

He got to his feet and held a hand out to James.

“C’mon I have no food but there's likely to be some inside”

James took the hand graciously and hauled himself up.

“The names James by the way” he smiled as he approached the side lock. Shoving two hair grips into the lock and feeling around the particular grip.

“gotta say you're the first nicey I've met” James muttered.

Seamus scoffed from behind him.

“I need food and I know jack shit about lock picking, you're saving my ass if anything”

It was James’ turn to scoff.

“Yeah you really looked like you were in the shit from where I was sat literally dying”

He wiggled the hair grip some more, shoving the bottom one in further.

_ ‘Click’ _

“Ah! There we go!” He triumphed standing back.

He turned to Seamus who pushed his glasses up his nose and made his way forward.

The shutters made a loud rattle as the blonde pulled them up. James’ stomach dropped at the glass door.

“Let's hope that's not locked” he half joke. He got an incredulous look in return. 

“Gimme your jacket”

James frowned. “Why not your jacket asshole”

“Because I just found this a week ago in an old store  _ asshole;  _ don't wanna ruin it”

James huffed as he slid his jacket from his shoulders. 

“So mines okay to ruin” he said handing his black bomber jacket over.

“Yeah look at this, pristine clean fashion” Seamus replied voice dripping with sarcasm.

He wrapped the jacket round his elbow and drew his arm up.

“God I hope this doesn't shatter my damn elbow” Seamus sighed as he swung his elbow into the window. 

The glass shattered instantly; spraying out into the store with a piercing crash.

“Well” Seamus began craning his neck “elbows okay” 

 

James could already spot the energy bars at the front counter and made a hastily walk into the store. His boots crunching over the glass.

He hungrily took two and unwrapped them quickly. He had made his way through one as Seamus approached.

“hungry eh? Don't go too quick you'll make yourself sick “

James at the second in one mouthful.

“Or not” Seamus sighed.  

The blonde made his to the old drinks cabinet and pulled the few water bottles into his already open bag.

James did the same with the remaining energy bars; dragging the cardboard holder in the bag too.

 

He made his way over to Seamus and followed his suit. Instead pulling cans of mountain dew from the shelf.

“Mountain dew? Seriously?” Seamus scoffed.

“There is nothing natural in these so they won't go off quickly” he explained. James turned to the rest of the store and and sighed in relief.

“This place is barely touched we're lucky” he made his way down the first isle walking past all the perishables and towards the back wall of cans. He heard Seamus following shortly behind him.

 

“I suggest we find someway to hold up the door and stay here for the night” Seamus said, James could hear the relief in his voice as his eyes hit the cans.

“Or perhaps a bit longer we've got loads here jesus!” 

James made his way to canned vegetables and silently thanked any higher force.

“Oh sweet Jesus they have chicken noodle soup” Seamus sang from beside him. 

“I need all the canned corn I can get”

James sighed; grabbing an armful and scooping them in his bag. 

 

It felt weird; having such a casual conversation with someone these days.

Since the start he's tried to spend his days alone.

No one to slow him down and only himself to fend for. Then again he's never been in such desperation as today. He looks over at Seamus who's busy with a can opener, tongue peaking out his mouth in concentration and smiles.

He isn't one for religion but if an angel was a representation of a person right now he's looking at him.

 

He's only ever travelled with one other person since the downfall. A young bubbly man named Eddie. Too nice for his own good he gave half his food to James. 

A thick accent that loved to tell stories to try lighten the mood. And for a while it worked, James unable to resist smiling at his full of life laugh. 

He travelled with him for around seven months. Or there abouts, hard to keep up with time these days.

Eddie was too nice for his own good that it got him killed. A calm fall night and Eddie got shot over a trap.

A guy claiming to be injured and of course Eddie had to help.

Offering him a bandage and he got shot by an on looker hidden away.

James’ voice was so raw with shouting that night.

It took him three days to fully clean the blood of his arms and hands. He killed both the shooter and the one who tricked Eddie.

He couldn't bare to leave his friend so he buried him after a day of mourning.

 

James’ spent a very lonely year coming to realise being a lone wolf was the best idea.

His opinion still stood even with Seamus hungrily gulping soup down next to him.

_ Better off alone _

Seamus offered half to the can to him and guilt pooled deep in James’ stomach.

“We should board that door up” 

James spun on his heel and dragged his feet across the store towards anyway but Seamus’ kind sincere face.


End file.
